"Ugliest Olympic logo ever...."

And that's putting it mildly. Check out London's official logo for the 2012 Olympics over at Hot Air who comments:

It looks like an Air Supply concert T-shirt logo circa 1982. It’s that bad.

They also link to a BBC website where readers have submitted their own versions of logos. I'm with Bryan - I like versions number 3 and 11.

"Al-Qaeda in Lebanon"

Michael Totten reports that Al-Qaeda is in Lebanon and notes:

Lebanon is a weak and divided country. It is also, by far, and despite Hezbollah’s presence, the most liberal and democratic of all Arab countries. More than two thirds of the people who live there (Christians, Shias, and Druze) are considered infidels fit for slaughter by the salafist groups. A large percentage of Sunnis, in Beirut especially, are irreligious and bourgeois and modern. I, for one, am surprised it took Al Qaeda so long to move on them.

So far, the Lebanese Army and government are taking a hard line against the terrorists:

The Lebanese Army is clearing the “camp” of terrorists, booby-traps, car bombs, and even domestic animals rigged with explosives. The government says there will be no negotiated truce with the enemy, that their crimes will be punished with the death penalty either in combat or later in prison. It has been years, decades really, since the government and army of Lebanon have shown this kind of resolve.

They had better keep up the resolve. This crisis may be nearing its end, but it could just as easily be merely the opening shots. Jund al-Sham (The Greater Syrian Army) has gone on full alert in the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp, Lebanon’s largest, outside the Sunni city of Saida south of Beirut. And Al Qaeda has published a most sinister threat to Lebanon on its Web site.

"Death or Glory": Michael Yon continues his dispatch

....from his embed with British soldiers. Excerpt:

The Queen’s Royal Lancers have been living out in the desert for about six months, like nomads moving from place to place, sleeping under the stars, getting much of their resupply of food and water by nighttime parachute drop as they patrol the Iran-Iraq border. They were living out there, as some officers had told me, in true Lawrence of Arabia style, wearing shamals, sometimes taking camel rides when Bedouins would wonder through their camps with great herds of camels. Some soldiers would go for weeks without bathing, while others would wash-down with a bottle or two of water. Water is strictly rationed.

LTC Nickersl-Ecershall would say that their job was to melt away into the desert, providing the eyes and ears that monitor the border. They’d apparently done their job well. I had been on many patrols with American forces along the Iranian border, but had no idea that Brits were out on desert safari. Although there had been some fighting, the Queen’s Royal Lancers had not lost a single soldier to combat during this tour.

Read the whole thing.

U.S. destroys Iran-supplied rocket teams in Sadr City

Good news on those Mahdi Army "rocket teams" that have been terrorizing the Green Zone with Iran-supplied rockets, from Bill Roggio:

Apache Longbow attack helicopters from the 1st “Attack” Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division killed 4 Mahdi fighters and destroyed 10 rockets and 1 truck. The air attack was followed up by a ground raid by soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team. Six Mahdi fighters were captured in “a residence inside Sadr City.” Reuters reported the engagement occurred in the neighborhood of Habibibya, which U.S. forces cordoned.

The Multinational Forces Iraq press release was clear the Mahdi cell was firing rockets, and not smaller mortars. The word “rocket” was used 7 times in the press release. U.S. forces found 107mm rockets in a field north of Sadr City on Friday. “[The cache] was found in an area known to locals as the ‘Jaish Al Mahdi Forbidden Zone,’ where some rocket attacks on Baghdad’s International Zone have originated,” Multinational Forces Iraq reported. “The cache contained 20 107mm rocket warheads, three fully assembled 107mm rockets, one 60mm mortar and a sandbag full of blasting devices.”

The Washington Post noted on Saturday that Iran has been supplying Shia insurgents with 240mm rockets, with a range of 30 miles, known as the Fajr-3. “Three of the rockets have targeted U.S. facilities in Baghdad's Green Zone, and one came very close to hitting the U.S. Embassy in the Iraqi capital, according to the U.S. officials.” These are the same rockets Hezbollah fired into northern Israel from Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006.

Michael Yon's Memorial Day Message

I was away from home and internet yesterday for the holiday, but Michael Yon was there with a must-read Memorial Day message:

Q has already made it to Germany and is about to be flown home. CSM Pippin is on his way to Germany. Along the way, excellent groups like Soldiers’ Angels will welcome them home, I expect. My readers will find out here where to send messages once that news is released.
Both men often lamented to me how frustrating it was to be back home and realize that the average American is not aware of practically any of the progress that’s been made in Iraq. Both men darken with something closer to anger when they consider the sacrifices made by fallen soldiers and the fact that while the media most likely counted the deaths in all instances, they also most likely failed to mention any of the good things their fellow soldiers had accomplished while in Iraq.

I plan to stay in Iraq for the rest of 2007, doing my part to tell of these and other accomplishments, and both of these men would not have it any other way. But when I do finally get home, I want to see these heroes, and be reminded what Memorial Day is all about.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross reports from Baghdad

...in an exclusive over at The Fourth Rail. It's a long, but necessary read, however I'll leave you with this excerpt:

Right now our country is embroiled in a critical debate about setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Unfortunately, this is one of the most intellectually impoverished political debates that I have ever witnessed, with both sides often resorting to sloganeering and demagoguery rather than substantive argumentation. One thing that my time in Iraq underscored to me is that, in looking at the country, many people see what they want to see. I would often think about the stories that journalists might write if they went where I went and saw what I saw. For example, after my first night on patrol—when the civilians we saw were clearly happy to see U.S. troops and felt comfortable around them—a conservative journalist might write a piece countering the stories about Iraqis hating us and wanting us to leave. Fine—but what about polls indicating that a shockingly high percentage of Iraqis think it’s okay to kill American troops? What about neighborhoods where U.S. troops would encounter a very different reception? On the other hand, a liberal journalist could write a very funny piece about the Iraqi army’s sloth and trigger-happy approach to the world, and conclude that we need to leave immediately because the Iraqi security forces are hopeless and at least a withdrawal will put some fire in their belly. Fine—but what about Iraqi soldiers’ improvements? What about the likelihood that pulling out would guarantee the Iraqi army’s failure?

Thailand: Rumors of a second coup?

Perhaps one wasn't enough. The always invaluable Bangkok Pundit links to a report that soldiers have been dispatched to TV stations to "protect" them from other parties who might use them for their own purposes. Bangkok Pundit wonders:

Who would be behind the second coup? Will it be (1) Thaksin whose army allies have been decimated, (2) Gen. Saprang who has recently been sidelined and his allies, or (3) Gen. Sonthi to consolidate his position even further?

Meanwhile Islamic radicals continue to terrorize and bomb Southern Thailand in their efforts to carve an Islamic state out of the region. As usual, the military idiots in charge of Thailand continue to speculate that the bombings are works of political elements, much like they tried to explain away the Bangkok bombings, when in fact it is painfully aware to everyone but those in charge who is responsible.

Iraq: Exploiting a single narrative

Austin Bay participated in a Q&A with Dr. David Kilcullen, senior counter-insurgency advisor to General David Petraeus in Iraq. Austin Bay points us to an article the good Dr. wrote in 2006 explaining that a good counter-insurgency involves "exploiting a single narrative" to counter the enemy's "narrative". Austin asks the pertinent question:

I asked Kilcullen: “What is the single narrative (or alternative narrative) in Iraq? And this is a two-part question. Could you gives us an example of a narrative in a Baghdad neighborhood?”

Kilcullen responded:

That’s been one of the weaknesses in this business over time. I think it is something that is improving now. We have to make certain the story, the message people are getting from Iraqi government institutions is same as message from the US (sources). One of our problems we found is how difficult it is for Americans to generate a message Iraqis find convincing. (That’s why) we need to work with Iraqis, and we are in the supporting role.

(At the moment) the Iraqi government is putting out this message to the people: that you don’t need militias to protect you against terrorists. The government can do that. Gain trust in the government to protect you and move from a dependency on militias.

-------------------------------------------------

The single narrative the US has pursued is that as they (Iraqis) stand up, we stand down. That message is not particularly comforting to Iraqis. The single big message (the Iraqi government and coalition are sending) now is that we are protecting the population and trying to achieve sustainable stability. We are improving security and doing it to create a sustainable space so Iraqis can do it themselves.

Emphasis mine.

Sadr back in Iraq

Via Bill Roggio:

Sadr is believed to have slipped back into Iraq one week ago. While Sadr's spokesmen have long claimed Sadr never left Iraq, the pretense has now been dropped.

Sadr spoke to over 6,000 followers at a in mosque Kufa, and he railed against the U.S. presence in Iraq. "No, no for Satan. No, no for America. No, no for the occupation. No, no for Israel," Sadr chanted at the opening of his sermon. "We demand the withdrawal of the occupation forces, or the creation of a timetable for such a withdrawal... I call upon the Iraqi government not to extend the occupation even for a single day."

Sadr fled Iraq on January 14, after General Petraeus assumed command of Multinational Forces Iraq and announced the Baghdad Security Plan would be taking effect. Sadr immediately left Iraq and sheltered in Iran, and was guarded by Iran's Qods Force, according to reports.

At least the Mahdi army is a fragment of what it used to be. Now if we can just do something about Sadr.

Banning handguns - so they won't be stolen?

Alphecca makes the obvious point:

By this logic, we could prevent all crimes of theft by simply banning the temptations: Jewelry, laptops, DVD players, cars, wristwatches, prescription pain killers, and so on. Brilliant! As a bonus, by banning private automobile ownership, traffic infractions and drunk driving deaths will drop like a stone.

Shakespeare vanishing from American colleges

That's the result of a study done by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Via the Chicago Sun-Times who notes some of the classes being offered by our fine Universities:

At most of America's top colleges, Shakespeare is simply an elective -- one among many. That puts him on a par with literature courses on "Nags, Bitches and Shrews" at Dartmouth; Los Angeles, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Baywatch at Northwestern; baseball at Emory, and "Cool Theory," at Duke, where students devote themselves to the study of a single word of American slang.

Hat tip to Minding the Campus for the article.

Germany attacks Ireland's low corporate tax system as "unfair competition"

From the Irish Examiner:

Ireland has the second-lowest corporation tax rate in the EU at 12.5%, which is credited for creating the celtic tiger, attracting massive foreign investment and jobs. Germany has the highest at 38.6%. In 2004 over €33 billion flooded into the country, almost the same as went to Germany.

German minister Peer Steinbruck warned that Ireland and other low tax countries in Eastern Europe were involved in what he called cutthroat competition that was not sustainable in the long run.

“Corporate tax laws such as those in Ireland are being exploited by German companies that set up subsidiaries there, borrow money from them and then write off the interest against their profits in Germany,” he complained.

The German government is adopting a two pronged attack — first in pushing the European Commission to develop an EU-wide harmonised tax base and secondly by reopening the EU’s Code of Conduct on unfair tax competition.

Mr Steinbruck’s deputy, Axel Nawrath, said they would push the finance ministers of the other member states for a new code of conduct once the German presidency ended at the end of June.

“This is something that must be addressed by the group dealing with the code of conduct. Germany is very adamant about this,” he said.

Politicians from all parties, Internal Markets Commissioner Charlie McCreevy and business interests have all warned that the plan to harmonise the corporate tax base must be killed.

Big hat tip to Daniel J. Mitchell at Cato@Liberty who comments:

The bad news is that Germany is attacking Ireland. The good news is that the Germans now attack with words and bureaucratic schemes rather than Panzers and Stukas. But the attack - based on German complaints that Ireland’s low tax rates are “unfair” - is nonetheless despicable. Instead of attacking Ireland, the Germans should learn from the Irish Miracle and cut tax rates and reduce the burden of government.

Seeking failure: In Centrist California, Republican Party moves further right.

The Republican Party in California seems intent to doom itself to failure, in this long, but absolute must-read, from Bill Bradley:

The Republican Party in California is in a very odd position. Even as it has a governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has won two landslide elections in a row and boasts a 62% job approval rating for his centrist approach, the party leadership has moved to the far right.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Unlike most Republican voters, according to many polls, these new leaders not only oppose any increase in the minimum wage, but the existence of the minimum wage. “The minimum wage is socialism,” says Fleischman.

They oppose Schwarzenegger’s environmental programs, in particular his drive to curtail greenhouse gas emissions and, in most cases, deny that the greenhouse effect exists. Again, in stark contrast to the views of most Republican voters.

When vitriolic right-wing columnist Ann Coulter called Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a “faggot” at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, these worthies did not join the chorus of criticism that included all the mainstream Republican presidential candidates.

Asked about that, Fleischman said: “That’s a national issue. We focus on state issues.” Yet his publication featured glowing reports from the conference and he and his bloggers regularly opine about all sorts of national issues.

When Schwarzenegger called Rush Limbaugh “irrelevant” during an appearance on the Today Show, prompting a brief war of words with the gasbag ideologue, the Flash Report sided with Limbaugh over the Republican governor, dubbing the right-wing radio talk show host “America’s Anchorman.”

After a period in which party leadership embraced appeals to independent voters, the fastest growing segment of voters in the state, key to Schwarzenegger’s two victories, the new party leadership wants to ignore them, banning them from participating in next year’s early presidential primary.

“I will order that the primary ballot go to independent voters,” vowed Nehring in a meeting with political reporters after taking over as state party chairman in February. But he didn’t have the authority to do that under party rules, and has not moved to change the rules.

“I don’t know how you function as a modern political party in California without reaching out to independent voters,” says former party chairman Sundheim. He has pushed for their inclusion in the presidential primary.

But the vicars of the far right will have none of it. The bloggers crusade relentlessly against it. As Fleischman puts it: “Only Republicans should decide who our candidates are. If they want to vote in our primary, they should become Republicans.”

It’s an attitude that Democrats adore. “We want independents to vote in our primary,” says strategist Roger Salazar. “Let those guys have their little conservative clubhouse if they want.”

Emphasis mine. Bill Bradley then mentions the wide gap between the far right Republican Party leadership and Republican voters on the issues of global warming and the environment:

As the far right party leaders carp about Schwarzenegger, they are frequent fliers in the face of the views of actual Republican voters. Nowhere is this more evident than on the global warming issue.

-----------------------------------------------

Schwarzenegger’s environmental polices are overwhelmingly supported by Republican voters, 63% to 19%, in polling late last year by the widely respected Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). Schwarzenegger’s own private polls, of course, show much the same thing.

A PPIC poll over the summer showed 62% support among Republicans for unilateral state action, independent of the federal government, to control greenhouse gases leading to climate change and global warming. Only 33% were opposed.

71% of Republicans backed the already existing state law to require automakers to to sharply curtail tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases in upcoming models of motor vehicles. 82% of Republicans back the government spending more money to develop alternative energy sources for motor vehicle fuels.

82% of Republicans want the government to spend more money on developing developing renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and biofuels.

On the specifics of the Schwarzenegger plan on greenhouse gases, 65% of Republicans favor the rollback of greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. 69% of Republicans favor the mandatory emission limits being applied to electric power, oil, and natural gas facilities.

Part of the reason for the Democrats continued victories in California is due to the ineptness of their opposition.

Banging the lower-corporate-tax-rate drum

Larry Kudlow joins the chorus of those pushing for a corporate tax rate decrease and notes:

We should not bat an eye at reducing the 35 percent federal corporate tax rate.

And, while we’re at it, we should cut the corporate capital gains tax rate as well. Loews CEO James Tisch, who is justifiably concerned about our long-term competitiveness, is pushing this latter proposal. He believes that hundreds of billions of languishing corporate asset dollars would be unlocked and reinvested if this were to occur. He’s right. The result would be an inevitable infusion of new oxygen into the corporate bloodstream. It would create new businesses and greatly expand existing ones. All this would of course create tens of thousands of new jobs for American workers, not to mention a tidal wave of new tax receipts at Treasury.

Right now, the US and Japan are the flag bearers of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. (When one includes state taxes, the US rate is actually higher—40 percent). Yet, the EU average according to Washington policy analyst Dan Clifton is only 27 percent. And virtually every country around the globe is slashing away at their corporate income tax rate. Ireland’s booming economy boasts a corporate tax rate of only 10 percent. Even France comes in lower than the US. It’s quite clear that we have put ourselves at a significant competitive disadvantage in a very palpable, real sense.

Update: From our friends at Cato@Liberty, add yet another country to the list of those lowering corporate tax rates:

Kiwi officials openly admit that these reforms are driven by a need to compete with other nations, further confirming the need to protect and promote fiscal rivalry from the anti-competition schemes of international bureaucracies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Fred Thompson: First presidential candidate blogger?

Or at least the first one to do it right. Thompson has posted at RedState before. Then after Michael Moore sought a debate with Thompson over criticism for his Cuba trip for his upcoming propaganda documentary film, Sicko, Thompson quickly responded by posting a light-hearted video response while chomping a cigar. And today, Mr. Thompson has a post up at Pajamas Media:

To solve our problems, we have to realize that our country is pretty evenly divided along party lines. With close numbers in the House and the Senate, there will be no real reform without real bipartisanship. Too often, what we are seeing isn’t an effort to find solutions, but rather insults and purely partisan politics. There are many good and responsible people in government who are willing to work together – but the level of bipartisanship needed for real progress can only be achieved when politicians perceive that the American people demand it.

I talked about this a bit a couple of weeks ago out in California. I talked about how I’d recently run across an old clipping of a Thomas Sowell editorial. In it, he pointed out that Wendell Willkie received the largest vote of any Republican for President when he lost to Franklin Roosevelt in 1940. After the election, though, he never let partisanship turn him into an enemy of the administration. Instead of trashing the president, he served as Roosevelt’s emissary to Winston Churchill.

In the same editorial, Sowell also told a story about Churchill. When British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain died, early in the Second World War, Churchill delivered his eulogy. Though Chamberlain had turned a deaf ear, for years, to all of Churchill’s warnings that could have prevented that war, Churchill praised him. “He acted with perfect sincerity,” Churchill said. “However the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor when we have done our best.”

Compare that magnanimity to what is going on in Washington and much of the Internet today. Sowell asks us, “In this day and time, can’t we have a responsible adult discussion of issues while the nation’s fate hangs in the balance in its most dangerous hour?”

Whatever one may think about Fred Thompson, he has proven to be very net savvy and is quite the communicator via digital resources.

Update: More on Thompson from Peggy Noonan over at OpinionJournal:

He is running a great campaign. It's just not a declared campaign. It's a guerrilla campaign whose informality is meant to obscure his intent. It has been going on for months and is aimed at the major pleasure zones of the Republican brain. In a series of pointed columns, commentaries and podcasts, Mr. Thompson has been talking about things conservatives actually talk about. Shouldn't homeowners have the right to own a gun? Isn't it bad that colleges don't teach military history? How about that Sarkozy--good news, isn't it? Did you see Tenet on Russert? His book sounds shallow, tell-all-y.

These comments and opinions are being read and forwarded in Internet Nation. They are revealing and interesting, but they're not heavy, not homework. They have an air of "This is the sound of a candidate thinking." That's an unusual sound.

Hat tip to - who else? - PajamasMedia.

Turning the tables on the Associated Press

Ouch. Michelle Malkin effectively skewers AP writer Nancy Benac who published a piece critical of GOP candidates, pointing out their lack of "diversity" in appointing advisers vs. the Democratic candidates. She turns the tables on the AP pointing out that of the 22 individuals on the AP Board of Directors 19 are men, 0 are "women of color", and 1 is a "man of color". She's still looking for info on 2 more members. Plenty of photos over at her site.

Crushing of dissent...

...in Thailand where the new military government has punished a radio station for receiving a call from the former Prime Minister Thaksin and allowing him to speak for 10-15 minutes:

Thaksin calls up a radio station in Bangkok and speaks for about 10-15 minutes. What happens to the radio station? The Nation reports:

[Public Relations] Department director-general Pramote Ratvinij said from the UK that he had just learned about the interview and so ordered his officials to "punish" the station for undermining national security.

COMMENT: Am I a national security threat just for mentioning Thaksin's name?

Bernard Lewis: Was Osama right?

Interesting article from Mr. Lewis over at OpinionJournal that asks if the U.S. is truly "...pampered and degenerate..." as Osama and the Islamists have claimed :

During the Cold War, two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: "What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?"
------------------------------------
From the writings and the speeches of Osama bin Laden and his colleagues, it is clear that they expected this second task, dealing with America, would be comparatively simple and easy. This perception was certainly encouraged and so it seemed, confirmed by the American response to a whole series of attacks--on the World Trade Center in New York and on U.S. troops in Mogadishu in 1993, on the U.S. military office in Riyadh in 1995, on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000--all of which evoked only angry words, sometimes accompanied by the dispatch of expensive missiles to remote and uninhabited places.

Stage One of the jihad was to drive the infidels from the lands of Islam; Stage Two--to bring the war into the enemy camp, and the attacks of 9/11 were clearly intended to be the opening salvo of this stage. The response to 9/11, so completely out of accord with previous American practice, came as a shock, and it is noteworthy that there has been no successful attack on American soil since then. The U.S. actions in Afghanistan and in Iraq indicated that there had been a major change in the U.S., and that some revision of their assessment, and of the policies based on that assessment, was necessary.

More recent developments, and notably the public discourse inside the U.S., are persuading increasing numbers of Islamist radicals that their first assessment was correct after all, and that they need only to press a little harder to achieve final victory. It is not yet clear whether they are right or wrong in this view. If they are right, the consequences--both for Islam and for America--will be deep, wide and lasting.

Emphasis mine.

The honest, blunt truth: We just don't care enough.

That's the harsh reality, according to A Second Hand Conjecture, who penned an open letter to Mohammed over at IraqTheModel:

The real reason is we don’t care enough. Why would we value you and your family less? It is a hard thing to say to you, though I have no doubt you know it in your heart. Europe was not only the home of most of our ancestors, the source of the intellectual, philosophical and spiritual traditions which guided us, but it is familiar and comforting to us as well. You, however, are far more culturally, spiritually and historically divorced from us, or at least we believe that to be true. You are the other, Europe is related. I have written of the way we tend to view these things, and it is human nature. Some of us see the gap between our caring for our family, country, and countries we are more familiar with, in descending importance, as smaller than others do. I cannot honestly say I don’t feel to some extent the same way, but the difference isn’t as large as it is for most Americans or Europeans apparently. Iraq was fine when it was thought (foolishly) that it would be quick and easy. Unfortunately Americans are not willing to spend 1/20th of what we would to save Europe in resources, and we are not willing to spend 1/1000th of what we would in casualties, for Iraq. That is the cold hard truth.

I tried to have this conversation with a blogger here in America who is one of the most extreme in her desire for withdrawal. I presented a situation quite analogous to the Middle East, but placed the issue in Europe. In that circumstance she was more than willing to say she would support our involvement. When I pointed out that that was exactly the situation we faced in the Middle East, she abandoned the conversation. She didn’t want to face the implications of it, but we all know it is true.

I don't agree with 100% of this, but it is a detailed, intelligent response well worth the read.

Awesome: Amazon.com to launch DRM-free music store

Over at TechCrunch:

The decision is also another step in bringing down the DRM wall. There may have been a lot of interest and discussion in relation to Apple’s announcement in April, but it’s easily forgotten that as the most popular destination for legal digital music, Apple is also the biggest seller of DRM infected music. Amazon selling only DRM-free music sends a message that a leading retailer is willing to back consumers over big business and that a digital music business can be built and continued using only DRM-free products.

I was a big fan of emusic for this very reason, DRM-free, 100% mine-to-own-music. I pretty much soured on all the other music stores, getting sick and tired of registering my laptop and mobile players with the various music stores or having problems playing or burning CDs. Amazon's announcement is most welcome.

Hat tip to PajamasMedia.